


Naming

by Elizabeth Conall (EllieMurasaki)



Category: Abraham's Daughter - Arcade Fire (Song)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2013-09-23
Packaged: 2017-12-27 11:35:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/978400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Conall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An excerpt from a blog post analyzing Genesis 21-22.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Naming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perfectworry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectworry/gifts).



It always bothers me, that Abraham's daughter has no canonical name. Traditionally her name is Iscah, just as traditionally the wife of Noah is Naamah and the wife of Laban is Adinah, but these are not things, I've found, that Christians know. Unless they happen to have looked up the Biblical nameless on Wikipedia, as I have.

This woman, the ancestor (so they say) of all Muslims just as her brother Isaac is ancestor of all Jews, the woman who bargained for the life of her brother and for the lives of all those people who might be sacrificed to the God of Abraham in future, was not thought important enough by the Yahwist author to _record her name_. The Yahwist recorded all sorts of minutiae—look at the other Iscah, the daughter of Haran, who appears only in Genesis 11:29 and does nothing except be the daughter of Haran—but he did not record Abraham's daughter's name. Abraham's daughter lives with Jephthah's in a place of irrelevant importance.

This _bugs_ me.

My name is Jessica, a name that (I'm told) derives from that of Iscah the daughter of Haran. I prefer to believe that I am named for Abraham's daughter.


End file.
